Difficulty too hard to simply play the game?

[Narebus]

I started playing Nehrim this last weekend and was immensely impressed from the moment I started. Most things about the game were extremely well done textures seemed well made (except for a few such as the steel shortsword), the landscape was varied and aesthetically pleasing, people had dialogue that for the most part made sense and there was a variety of monsters and bandits throughout the land. Overall it is simply a well made game.

However one thing has brought the game down in my eyes and that's that the combat is simply too difficult for a casual person to play through easily. In the mine the combat wasn't bad, monsters were leveled appropriately for a new character and I was able to get through most fights easily enough. Once out of the mine and on my way to the sanctum however things changed. At first when I ran into wolves on the road and they took down 3/4 of my health despite my best efforts I attributed it to my level and thought nothing more of it. I died of course when I came across groups of enemies (The Fortune Restriction guys come to mind) and I learned to avoid certain areas until I had a few more points in endurance or found tutors to teach me better blade, armor or marksman skills. But even after finding these tutors and gaining levels there was still a problem. I was still dieing way too often to make things enjoyable. Not too long into my play experience I found myself with the difficulty slider all the way to the left, something I've never had to do in Oblivion. It made one on one fights manageable, I was able to fight most things in the level 1-7 area one on one but the moment another monster joined the fight I really had two options: Die or run away.

So my game started becoming a lot more of me running away from monsters and trying desperately to get xp to level up instead of me venturing into new areas or trying to continue the quest line after I get to an area where I just can't kill anything. In short the game has become unenjoyable. I'm level nine now, I'm still in the starting zone, still getting owned by small groups of wolves and the only thing that has kept me playing to this point is the idea that maybe I'll get to a level where that wolf will merely be a momentary nuisance instead of another potential death. When I read that Nehrim was supposed to expand on the RPG elements and less focus on the action that made me excited. Problem is the action in Nehrim is far more common and far more difficult than anything in oblivion which detracts from my ability to simply play the game.

I would love to see an update which would in essence allow the slider to go a little further left. I'll probably still try and play all the way through Nehrim regardless but I know I would enjoy the game much more if my deaths were limited to once or twice every couple hours unless I'm fighting a boss instead of dieing multiple times an hour.

[kassandra]

Hi!
I've finished Nehrim with 2 characters so far and I have to admit that the beginning is quite difficult. And if you're following the path a bit too to the WN than it wil be more difficult. Once you have earned some money and bought yourself skill upgrades from trainers the game will become much easier or even too easy and you will have to change difficulty level ;p
Moreover, you will be able to make potions (there are a lot of health potions which weight 0 , you can make them from Alchemy + Huting Skills).

Levelling in Nehrim is not that important as skill upgrades (that's my impression). So I would simply recommend to earn some money and visit trainers often. (But first find them)

One tip:

[+]

Go to Arcane Sanctum. You will find most (every?) trainer there

and buy Paralyse(Midnight Sleep? Don't remember how it's called. Really helps :p

Good luck!

[Casper]

i would say nehrim is a bit or a lot harder than oblivion, however i found that enjoyable. in oblivion i didn't really have cause to run from a fight, unless i treaded on carelessly. just out of curiosity, what's your character like? are you more like a skirmisher, battlemage, a melee fighter, etc? you might try fighting evasively, hit & fallback or sidestep, save heavy blows for when your opponent is off-balance. or attack from ambush (my preferred way to kill things), stealth can be a large deciding factor, even if you can't get a sneak attack usually you can still land the first blow, sometimes that can be enough. Healing is also an important thing to remember as well. Well I guess that’s all fairly well known. But the only thing I can really add, evading blows is better than trying to block them (IMHO), assuming you can evade a particular hit, if you can’t that is when you block. Well that’s about all I can think of.

---edit
at first it is a bit hard... some might say too hard, i don't though. you just need to be very careful. some people even think that when you get your character going it gets to easy, my first character is level 51 atm, do i think the game is to easy? i guess, but i view it as a reward for creating a hardened character.

[koschwarz]

interesting. back then in oblivion, i played the hardest mod that ever made to it: tamriel immersion experience. with TIE at lvl1 you run from everything, at lvl 10 you had a chance to survive, at lvl20 a fight was still a challange now THAT was hard.

nehrim seemed to be hard when i exit the first dungeon. 2-3 wolves could kill me in a second. however, in a dark dungeon i could use the darkness, hit the monsters or bandits with a sneak shot by bow, used up all my potions and scrolls, but even at lvl1, i could defeat a whole dungeon in fold valley. i didn't leave fold valley until lvl10 and i always stayed on the roads. im lvl40 now and i still like to travel on roads. i even skipped the sanctum which was a mistake because there are teachers, stuffs, and some quite easy mission to gain xp.

casper, you should use all of your resources you have. if you have to run, run. but in fold valley there is a lot of dungeon where you can gain many xp and your primary combat and defence skills can be leveled up. a lot of good loot can be found which increase your skills, health etc.

my character is an alemanni, i leveled up only sword and light armor however his main skills are heavy armor and blunt too. this way soon he had considerable skills to kill and defend. not mentioned that i always use destruction to cause as more damage as i could.

and i agree kassandra: very soon i learned a "midnight sleep" spell (paralyze), so even for a 1 sec paralyze is a great help in combat.

[Shatar]

Hey,

Dungeons are always hard in the beginning. I had to struggle a lot to get out alive sometimes. My advice is to train your weapon skill quickly.

Now my character has almost 100+ Blunt and I cut 'n bash through everything with my axe and hammer. Sneaking is also a good way to deal with stronger enemies quickly. I've trained my Marksmanship after my Blunt was high enough. I've never used the paralyse spell though. I rely on potions and healing spells only.

I made most money by doing dungeons and making potions with high Alchemy and then selling them. I still have to save up more to buy the weapons from the Master Craftsman... There's one that does 100+ Dmg with my blunt skill .

[TheHawk]

Hi.

I believe this all comes down to the type of character you play. How you level up. Have had problems same as others at the start of the game, especially wolves and boars. Never been killed off though.
I always play an archer/sneak/mage or mage/sneak/archer. Long distant damage and run/find high spot. Also if watch how creatures move, its quite easy to find a rhythm to killing them, even close up with a bow.

Not sure if a spoiler, but a way I use...

[+]

The way a wolf moves say, after it pounces it crouches, walks slow. Run in to it and hit take step back, it moves forward, move to meet and just before it grabs you step back, hit again, repeat. All creatures I have come across have a certain movement, which is very easy to interupt the point at which they do you any damage

Not saying its easy, I lose a lot of health points and run a bit (running away is a lot more life like/ rpg than a slash and dash and your the hero right at the start and can kill anything type of game), makes it a lot more fun than how easy I find Oblivion (although I did try OOO'S mod and coming across a level 20 monster at level 1 was daft!)
Have been through level 30-40 areas at level 12 and had fun. Always have plenty of potions and if too difficult get out and go back later.

The level slider by the way makes very little difference in Nehrim, but there is a way too speed up your leveling if you want. That is find the thread (ibeebee) about slowing down levelling and reverse how its done.

[VirtualFM]

Interesting... This seems to be much depending on the way you play the game (I mean, which type of character you like to play). I always liked to be an archer in RPGs. I was a bit disappointed for not being able to be an archer in the beginning of Nehrim (didn't find any bow in the troll caves, maybe I just missed it) and it was somewhat challenging. But since I got myself a bow, this has been easy as cake!

I developed Marksman a lot, and this with lots of Acrobatics, Agility and Sneak. The result of this was that I am next to unbeatable as long as I don't let anyone touch me! I was still about level 14 when somehow I ventured into the Dark Forest. It was spooky and I hated it (not because I hated it because it's not well made, on the contrary, I hated because the atmosphere is so good I just HATED it as a character ) but I went through it like an hot knife through butter.

It was pretty funny actually! I was lost and in a hurry (really cool to be lost and in a hurry in the Dark Forest!) full of crap, always over-encumbered and just wanted to find some new place to sell everything and feel "light" again! So, I walked and walked and... Hey Look at all those roads over there in the West! It must be a big capital city like Erothin! Looks even bigger! Treobar, heh?! Let's go there, I will surely find a nice merchant to buy me all of this cra... these reliques!!! So I walked and killed whatever I found in the way, leaving all the good stuff behind and planning to come back another day to pick it up. SO you must imagine the disappointment it was when I reached Treomar!

Anyway, even if I was level 14 and I found enemies sometimes twice my level, I killed every foe with one or two arrows. Of course this was in sneak mode. Even if I loose sneak I can run backwards fast enough while firing arrows. If in difficulties, some poisoned arrows do the trick, mixed with some paralyze spells (1 second will do!)

Now I have Marksman over 100 (with magical objects) and Sneak as well. I kill anything in my path with one shot (even with the crappiest iron arrows) and my major difficulty is: what the heck am I going to do with all those fatigue/health/magika/poison/shield potions?! I have no use for them whatsoever! They are just burdening me, as I seldom have the need to use any one of them. I'm looking forward to find the famous dinosaur everybody is talking about and see what happens then!

[koschwarz]

since i don't need potions i sell them. i reserve a couple exclusive health (if i have no time to heal myself by spell) and strenght potion (if i overburden myself, even if i can carry more then 800 "unit" but my basic gear weights only 150) and poisons (they are always useful) just in case, but i sell everything.

[Casper]

since i don't need potions i sell them. i reserve a couple exclusive health (if i have no time to heal myself by spell) and strenght potion (if i overburden myself, even if i can carry more then 800 "unit" but my basic gear weights only 150) and poisons (they are always useful) just in case, but i sell everything.

i made\make my own potions, sold what i couldn't use. being a master alchemist can get you obscene amounts of coinage. And rightly so for the obscene amount of time & effort in getting there.